What's up with creationism?

[robvalue]

It is believing part of a story in a book, ahead of all the knowledge that has been collected and refined in the history of mankind. (A history which started way before many creationists think the whole universe was created.)

In this way, it's just the same as the rest of religion, but it's one of the more demonstrably false stories.

Personally I think that people can believe it because our brains aren't good at visualising extremely long periods of time, like the time it took for man to evolve from simple life forms. Sometimes the brain instead says "that couldn't happen" and imagines a cartoon version of a blob turning into a human in a matter of a few years. Then again, I've barely heard of any people who understand evolution and then reject it. So it's a lot to do with education. Many theists are quite happy to accept evolution into their beliefs.